Blogs I Like: Ed Batista

You can learn a lot from a good example. That’s why every week I highlight one great business blog. This week, it’s Ed Batista’s blog. It’s one of those blogs where I always learn something and that “something” grows out of Ed’s thoughtful way of examining his experience. On his blog, Ed describes himself this way.

“I’m an executive coach, a change management consultant, and a Leadership Coach at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.”

Actually, those are simply the tips of three different icebergs and they don’t even reference a background that gives Ed the rich experience base to be good at those three things. For more, you can read his bio page, since this post is about his blog per se.

I advise most bloggers to keep a regular schedule and write relatively short posts. Ed does neither of those things. Instead, he offers a great example of how to produce long posts that people want to read all of and more of. There are two keys.

If you’re going to write long posts, they’d better be good. Ed does that. He draws on his own experience and uses concrete examples. He uses sub-heads to let you scan the post if you need to. The reasoning is lucid and transparent and the writing is clean. He often shares other resources.

If you’re going to write long posts, you’d better get good at capturing a reader’s attention. Since many of us use blog readers, you must have a compelling headline and a good opening or teaser paragraph. Ed does that. As you review his posts, pay special attention to the headlines and the opening paragraph.

There’s one more thing to watch for. Ed does a superb job on posts that summarize someone else’s work. Those posts are very helpful to readers like me, but hardly anyone does them well. Ed does them well.

Here are some representative posts from the last year or so. Read them with an eye toward what you can learn from Ed Batista’s example.

Thank you, Wally. I’m grateful for the positive feedback, and I feel like you described my approach to blogging perfectly. I’ve found that it doesn’t work well for me to be too strict about my writing schedule or the length of my posts–but if I’m going to be somewhat relaxed in those regards, then I need to be truly thoughtful about the value each post might provide to a prospective reader. It’s a balance that feels right for me as a person and that allows me to be of greatest service as a writer. Let me also take this opportunity to express some appreciation for you: You’re a tireless and incredibly generous supporter, and you inspire me to do even better work. Thanks again. -Ed